Jesus and Hierarchies
One thing I've learned about Jesus is, to him, human hierarchies are quite irrelevant and of no real significance.
His example was that the low was actually high and the high was actually low. He himself came as a servant and in terms of his social standing at times he was not much of a step up from a slave.
He talked of a heaven where slaves were free and the "first place" people of this world will be last in heaven, and that the "last place" people will be first in heaven.
His main enemies in life were the religious elites and worldly kings, and his best friends were lepers, sinners, tax collectors, adulterers, and "undesirables" of the time.
The main lesson I learned from this is "Don't Judge a King by His Cloak" and that, to God, human concepts of hierarchy and class are quite silly and just downright misleading in terms of how we should value people and who we should esteem. The hierarchy humans make is not the same hierarchy that God arranges. You can have kings and prodigies among the paupers and sinners, and monsters and despicables amongst the businessmen, priests and kings.
The other main lesson I learned from Jesus? "Don't base God's concept of hierarchy and human value on the world's...or your own."
Jesus saw each person as intrinsically valuable and to him, the only thing that really diminished your worth was how you treated people. That...and hypocrisy.
Jesus could forgive a prostitute quicker than he could forgive a hypocrite...because at least the prostitute was honest!😁
If deception is the worst abomination based on sheer body-count, it was deception and hypocrisy that was also the harbinger of Jesus's death.
Hypocrisy was the most detestable sin in Jesus's eyes...he spends a chapter or two really condemning it...because hypocrisy at its core is just lying.
In our world, many times the people at the top lied, cheated, and screwed over their fair share of people to get there with their nice houses and nice cars and swiss bank accounts, while many of those who spend most of their time in poverty, oppression, and deprivation do so with relative integrity and honesty.
They may be losers in the eyes of the "high-enders" but at least they are honest and don't treat people like filth or slaves. God knows we have a lot of that going on here.
The moral of this? The hierarchy of heaven looks a lot different than the hierarchy of earth, because God sees hierarchies, power, and value a lot more clearly and a lot better than we do. In fact, we have a lot of how we place our value and glory backwards and skewed.
One hing I've learned about Jesus is, to him, human hierarchies are quite irrelevant and of no real significance
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